Travelers and commuters have long sought myriad methods and devices to assist in planning their trips or commutes, including consulting weather and traffic reports. Conventional reports from a television or radio broadcast, a web page, a smart phone application, or other delivery means are typically only localized for a relatively broad potential audience. For example, a radio broadcast of current and forecasted weather conditions are typically only localized to the geographic area where the broadcast is aired. In order to attract and maintain a wide audience, such information reports must include the widest area possible within the broadcast zone. Similarly, broadcast traffic reports are only relevant to listeners traveling certain particular routes, which may only be a small percentage of the total audience. For instance, a traffic and weather report for a metropolitan area, such as New York City, typically contains a vast amount of information to which only a small portion is useful to each listener, depending on that listener's specific location. In a television broadcast, the localization and amount of information is even broader, since a television broadcast can cover significantly more area than a radio broadcast, including an entire state or multi-state region. The weather in Albany, N.Y. may not be very useful to a viewer in Lower Manhattan. In fact, a listener or viewer in Lower Manhattan must focus on the entire information report just to wean out the portion of information that is useful to him. Such a process is inefficient and time consuming to many consumers who are only looking for a very specific and localized amount of information.
Internet web sites and smartphone applications can be customized to focus only on the areas of importance to a specific user. However, a user may be traveling through multiple areas in which weather or other environmental information may differ. For example, a user traveling from Albany, N.Y. to Lower Manhattan may be able to obtain weather information for both locations, but not for the locations between these two destinations, where actual hazardous whether conditions may exist. In order for a user to gather sufficient information on the entire breadth of his journey or travels, the user must repeat the information-gathering process for each area. In addition, the user may not be able to access such information or reports while traveling. For instance, there may be safety concerns for a user to update environmental conditions using a smartphone while driving. In another instance, the user may not have access to the information during certain portions of their travel route, such as areas where wireless or telecommunication channels are unavailable for information-gathering using a smartphone application. Overall, even if the environmental information is available, such conventional processes requiring continual information-gathering is both time consuming and inefficient.
What is needed therefore, is an efficient and effective system and method to provide highly localized, customized, and dynamic weather and environmental information from multiple areas along a travel route.